So, thanks to Netflix, we have a juicy shark horror to watch for the first time in ages. Xavier Gens’ Under Paris is a breath of fresh air in the genre, which has been contaminated by poor campy movies in recent years. You don’t necessarily have to be a fan of shark movies to enjoy this one, as it’s so much more than that and offers something for every kind of audience. Set in the Seine in Paris, the cast of Under Paris deserves a huge round of applause. Here’s the leading cast that appears in this new Netflix movie.
Spoilers Ahead
Bérénice Bejo as Sophia
Widely known for her role as Christiana in the Heath Ledger starrer A Knight’s Tale, Bejo plays the protagonist Sophia in Under Paris. Sophia is a marine biologist and has led a team dedicated to saving whales and other sea life in a world where plastic waste has affected the oceans in a drastic way. Sophia lost her husband and crew on a mission in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch when a shark named Lilith annihilated them under water. Despite trying her best, she couldn’t save them, and she carries the trauma of losing the only people she felt safe with. Three years later, Sophia still finds herself just as wounded as she was before, and when a kid jokes about her team, you can see her descending into a dark place right away. The grief on her shoulders is too heavy for her, and she gets a chance to right her wrongs when the same shark returns to her life and she gets to know that it’s in Paris. Despite the Seine being a freshwater river, Lilith had adapted to survive there, and in her pursuit of driving Lilith out of the Seine, Sophia lost more than she imagined. If her existing trauma wasn’t enough, Lilith wipes out hundreds of people right in front of her eyes throughout the movie. But in the middle of all the chaos and sharks, Sophia might have found a person who makes her happy. She grows fond of Adil after he apologizes to her, and by the end of the film, she saves his life.
Nassim Lyes as Adil
Nassim Lyes, a national kickboxing champion in his time off camera, is a French actor with Algerian roots. Lyes plays Adil, a captain of the River Brigade, which protects the Seine in Paris. Adil is what we call an ideal policeman, which is a dying breed in today’s day and age. He left the army because he was scared in a life-threatening situation and abandoned his brothers in arms in the moment when they needed him. Adil never got over his lack of courage and kept blaming his character for not being enough. But this doesn’t make him a coward by any accounts, as he’s courageous enough to admit his mistakes and show his vulnerability. Adil is brave, and he stands up for what’s right, and that’s what he does when Sophia tries to make the Seine safe again. Adil is one of the few characters who live to see the aftermath of the explosions in the Seine, and he’s there with the woman he’s unknowingly been falling for all this while.
Léa Léviant as Mika
Leviant is Mika, an ocean activist who runs an organization called ‘Save Our Seas.’ It’s Mika who brings Sophia out of her apartment and back to Lilith, even though she didn’t know the carnage Lilith was going to bring. Mika is empathetic of the sealife, and she sometimes goes extra for their sake. It’s very easy to call Mika ‘woke,’ as she directly works against Sophia after she starts assisting the police, but that’s not the case. Mika is a misunderstood character who gets entrapped in her own innocence. Mika didn’t want Lilith to get killed, and she went to great lengths to try to save Lilith.
Anne Marivin as the Mayor of Paris
Marivin is a veteran of the French film industry, and her character is an imperious woman who happens to be the Mayor of Paris. It’s ironic how the mayor of the so-called ‘City of Love’ stays adamant about risking countless lives just for the sake of PR. She didn’t have a single empathetic bone in her body and decided to go ahead with hosting a triathlon, knowing very well that there’s a killer shark on the loose in the Seine. She ultimately had to pay the price of her arrogance in exchange for her beloved city getting swarmed with sharks.
Other characters
Nagisa Morimoto plays Ben, the tech expert of the Save Our Sea Foundation and the closest confidant of Mika. She’s also Mika’s lover, who hates to see her eccentric and carefree behavior. Ben sticks by Mika’s side throughout the film but does the right thing by informing the police about Mika’s plan to lure Lilith into the catacombs. Her death is unfortunate and gut wrenching, and she impresses in the little screen time she gets.
Aurelia Petit is Angele, the Chief of the River Brigade, which monitors and protects the Seine. Angele is a great boss who looks out for the people who work under her and advocates for the well-being of the citizens in front of the mayor. She is well aware of her surroundings and shouts for a ceasefire when the military starts to shoot rampantly at the Seine. Angele falls under the group of characters in this movie who genuinely wanted to do good but got suppressed by the people of power.
Jonas Dinal plays Adewale, a homeless man in the streets of Paris who is friends with the people of the River Brigade. Adewale had a big heart and cooperated with the guys any way he could, and he had a cute little dog, which might be the reason I decided to mention him in this article (am I sorry? No). However, he becomes the second victim of Lilith in Paris, which has a ring to it. I wonder if they could’ve named the movie this instead of the original title.
